Hardest Thing About Moving

May 3, 2010

Notes about the photos: These were taken at a play date with two of my very good friends and their daughters here and we see each other quite often. One of my friends brought chalks and started drawing. I didn’t know that she could draw so well! Her daughter loves Yo Gaba Gaba and those are the characters. I will definitely miss my great friends here and play dates with them, or I should say chatting with them. You might think that the photos might not be so related to the content. Well, they sort of are. They made me think about the topic to say the least.

When I tell people I meet for the first time that we move every two or three years, they usually sympathize us saying that it must be hard. The packing and moving do not bother me. On the contrary, I thrive in it. It gives me an opportunity to go through and reorganize our belongings. It also taught me to be practical and buy only things we really need. (I do get sidetracked and sometimes purchase unnecessary items…) Unpacking is a bit tougher than packing, but it excites me to think about how I want to decorate our new home.

What makes our life hard with such frequent moves is that we have to part from our good friends. Since you live far away from your own families by pursuing this life style, friends become more significant than just friends. They become a companion, consolation and even guide to life for you. If you have a kid(s), you see that your kids develop friendship and get very attached to their friends. Saying good-bye to those people can be as hard as saying good-bye to your own families. We encounter farewells where we know that we might not see some of our friends for a long time.

Nowadays though, you can virtually stay in touch which makes it much easier to be apart from your friends. You might not be able to have some tea with your friends, but you can keep up with their lives no matter how far you live from them with various means of technologies and social networking sites available out there. Kids today must be busy staying connected with all these friends from childhood thanks to the advanced technology.

Our weekends until we move at the end of June are filled up with social events. This happens every time it gets close to a move, which usually happens during summer. You think that since we say good-bye so often that we would get used to it. I don’t think I can ever get used to saying good-bye.

We experience “meeting is the beginning of parting” firsthand in our mobile life.